“It’s fine.” Cheng Zhu let out a small breath of relief and raised his voice, speaking quickly. “The Chief is still in his meeting. It’ll be about three hours yet. You can wait in the lounge.”
Wen Yan thanked him and lingered by the door for a long while without moving.
It seemed he had lost his sense of smell…
He had soaked in Liang Shijing’s pheromones all night long. Cheng Zhu had recoiled from three meters away, yet Wen Yan hadn’t smelled a thing since waking up. No wonder dinner hadn’t tasted as good as usual. No wonder Consul Ji and the servants at Oak Bay hadn’t noticed anything—they were all Betas…
After standing there for ages, Wen Yan quietly entered the lounge. Suddenly, a sense of calm settled over him.
Liang Shijing really didn’t seem to mind him at all. He had released his pheromones without any reservations, marked Wen Yan with his scent, and treated him so very, very well. With Liang Shijing’s vast resources and connections, maybe he could even find a way to save him? If that was possible—please, please save me. He wanted a home so badly. If he could have that…
A warm place where he truly belonged, home to a cute, scheming little Alpha and a cool yet gentle big Alpha.
Lost in these fanciful thoughts for a while, Wen Yan decided to test it out. Gland degeneration messing with his sense of smell? Was his brain degenerating too? He paced around the room but truly couldn’t detect any scent. On second thought, losing his smell wasn’t the end of the world. As long as he was alive, that was enough. He glanced back to make sure the door was securely shut, then crept over to the left side of the large bed and sniffed the pillow lightly.
Nope. Nothing.
He checked the cloakroom next. The glass cabinet was filled with an array of pristine white, black, and lead-gray shirts, along with perfectly hung suits. No luck there either…
In the end, Wen Yan just sniffed himself, pretending he could smell something.
He waited like that, bored out of his mind, but Liang Shijing returned in under an hour. The door creaked open bit by bit, and Wen Yan’s head lifted in tandem. The instant he saw the Alpha, his face flushed pink by degrees. Liang Shijing was impeccably dressed in his suit, tall and long-legged, a touch weary but still strikingly handsome.
“You’re awake?”
“Mm…” Wen Yan mumbled indistinctly.
Liang Shijing pulled out the chair beside him and sat down. He reached for the water pitcher to pour himself a glass, and Wen Yan’s cheeks burned crimson. It wasn’t for any other reason—Liang Shijing’s ring and middle fingers were wrapped in white bandages to treat muscle soreness. The pure white wrapping made his long, clean knuckles look unexpectedly erotic. His hand trembled ever so slightly as he poured, so Wen Yan quickly snatched the pitcher away with keen awareness and filled half a glass for him.
Liang Shijing paused, then lifted his gaze casually, his tone no different from before. “Remember anything?”
“A little…” Wen Yan furtively pressed his legs together.
“Slept well?”
“Yes.”
“What did you come here for?”
“To see you…” Wen Yan kept his head lowered, his palms rubbing his knees in slow circles. “I…”
Liang Shijing waited patiently.
Truth be told, he was terrified. No Omega had ever mustered this much courage. Liang Shijing had hated him at first, yet had unexpectedly taken him in—albeit through less-than-honorable means. The drugs didn’t matter. And thanks to those shady tactics, Liang Shijing had helped him bring Liang Wangyou into the world.
The best unintentional harvest in the world.
“Liang Shijing?” Wen Yan stammered out his name.
“Want it again?” Liang Shijing drawled lazily.
“No… I…” Wen Yan shivered as he clutched his knees. After endless hesitation, he suddenly turned his face aside. “Do you hate me?”
Liang Shijing turned to look at him as well, his gaze steady and unruffled, his expression as calm as still water. “No.”
“Why do you ask?”
Wen Yan no longer dared to meet his eyes. He lowered his gaze. “I want to tell you something… Back then, it wasn’t on purpose. I know it sounds like an excuse, but I’ve never released pheromones on anyone else. That year, when I was eighteen, it was the first time. I had no idea they were that powerful…”
Liang Shijing fell silent.
“I’m sorry.” Wen Yan’s tone grew even more earnest. “At the time, I wasn’t pleading for my father. I just wanted to see him one last time, so I took off the neck ring. It wasn’t to deliberately lure you into losing control.”
This was the first time they had openly discussed what happened all those years ago. The omega shouldered all the blame himself, never once considering whether the alpha had even tried to stop it. He had no clue that the alpha had allowed it to unfold that way—or rather, that the alpha had left the door wide open for him from the start. Otherwise, how could a heavily guarded place like Oak Bay admit a strange omega in the dead of night?
The omega was clever, yet such a fool. The alpha orchestrated everything, yet remained utterly passive.
“Don’t bring it up.” Liang Shijing’s voice turned abruptly cold.
“All right.” Wen Yan paused in a daze for a moment before summoning his courage once more. “Then… can I ask you something?”
Was it because you liked me that you fed me that yellow pill back then? Did you want to be with me? Or was it just humanitarian pity, sparing my reproductive cavity? Wen Yan had longed to know the answer for so long.
“Have you remembered something?” Liang Shijing asked.
“A bit.” Wen Yan ducked his head again, mumbling without conviction.
“Then what’s your answer?”
“My answer to what?”
This was the very answer the alpha had obsessed over day and night, yet now that it was within reach, his mind recoiled from it instinctively. It was like those people who dawdled endlessly before tackling anything important—always hesitating right at the goal line, so full of contradictions and twists.
Liang Shijing crossed his arms, resuming that defensive stance. “What’s your choice?”
Wen Yan got it. Liang Shijing wanted him to choose him.
“I want to stay in Oak Bay… I wasn’t lying.” There was a hint of grievance in Wen Yan’s voice. He hadn’t had a real home in years. He just wanted one so badly. If Liang Shijing would simply give him a place to belong, that would be enough—whether the man still had feelings for him or not.
“Will you run off again?”
“Never.”
“Where did you live during those five years? Who were you with?” The alpha’s heart raced beneath his calm facade as he pressed on with the questioning.
“In the safe house my father prepared for me. Alone.”
“Don’t bring it up.” Liang Shijing’s face darkened. In his tension, Wen Yan suddenly recalled that Liang Shijing hated hearing that name. He apologized at once.
A long silence stretched out before Liang Shijing finally spoke. “Where’s the safe house?”
“At the border.” Wen Yan held nothing back.
“The border stretches for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. I need the exact location.” Liang Shijing was determined to eradicate the threat for good. No matter how many promises Wen Yan made, he wouldn’t trust them. He would level the hiding spot to the ground and uproot every last safe house from the map.
But Wen Yan didn’t want to talk about that anymore. He wanted to tell him about the problem with his gland. His fingers dug into his knee until it hurt, though he felt nothing. His voice shook uncontrollably as he tried to speak.
“Actually, the painkillers I—”
The syllable for “took” had scarcely left his lips in a faint breath when Liang Shijing cut him off sharply. “Enough.”
“I don’t care. And I don’t want to hear it.”
“Whatever you did before you came back—or after. Whatever happened to you, or anyone you were with. Even if there’s more you want to confess right now, save it.” The alpha couldn’t bear to hear another word after “actually the painkillers.” His face was frosty as he stressed, “That’s your business. Not mine.”
“Why…” Wen Yan stared in shock.
“I don’t want to know. Got it?” Liang Shijing rose irritably to his feet.
Wen Yan stood too, awkward and stumbling over his words, too desperate to care. “But you’ve been good to me, haven’t you?”
“So what?” Liang Shijing shot back, his expression thunderous. “For Liang Wangyou’s sake, I’ve already given plenty of ground. What more do you expect?”
“…So it was just the pheromones?” Wen Yan fought to hold steady. “I thought you…”
—I thought you liked me.
But he knew he could never voice it now. Liang Shijing didn’t care about him at all. Liking him was out of the question.
“Thought what?” Liang Shijing demanded, his face grim.
“N-Nothing… I g-get it. I get it…” Wen Yan’s face drained of color. He staggered from the room, out of the Chief’s Mansion and into the night, holding back the whole drive back to Oak Bay. The moment he reached his room, the tears came. He sobbed for a long, long time.
He had always believed that the comfortable, lavish life Liang Shijing provided—the way he had moved into Oak Bay like its master, the tight security of the Chief’s Mansion escorting his every trip, stepping into the ring at the Taekwondo Gym to defend him, the rare vulnerability shown during his midnight fever, the hands-on care during his illness—all of it stemmed from affection. But it wasn’t true. It had all been illusion. That cold tone from moments ago, the lofty disdain, the icy interrogation—those were the reality. Why else had Liang Shijing never said he liked him? Why had he never asked him to stay? Why let him linger in Oak Bay without name or status?
Truth and illusion were both objective. Only his delusions had been his own.
Knowing the truth should have brought relief, but Wen Yan’s heart ached so terribly…
